Call for Applications: Pan-African MineTech Exploration Technology Pre-Incubation Programme - United Nations Development Programme

Applications are now open for the 2026 UNDP Timbuktoo Pan-African MineTech Startup Incubation Programme. The timbuktoo MineTech Hub, together with the United Nations Development Programme and ecosystem partners across Botswana, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe, invites students, graduates, researchers, engineers, innovators, technical professionals and early-stage entrepreneurs to turn real world mining and mineral exploration challenges into practical technology solutions. You do not need a finished product or an established company. A clearly defined idea or solution for how technology can be used to solve for the challenge briefs shared by the various UniPods is enough to apply.

Here’s your NYT Strands hint for today, plus the spangram and all of today’s Strands answers for puzzle No. 959 on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. Today’s Strands theme was tricky. It helps to be a runner. Read on for all the answers.

A supply-chain attack involving ConnectWise’s cloud services has exposed Microsoft 365 customers to unauthorized application access, with researchers reporting successful sign-ins across 173 partner and customer tenants. The incident centres on credentials associated with ConnectWise Cloud Backup, formerly SkyKick, and raises concerns about attackers exploiting permissions already entrusted to business software. ConnectWise has confirmed unauthorized access to application identities within its Cloud Backup environment. In an October 17 update on its service-status page, the company said it was shutting off application access, interrupting customer backups while investigation and remediation continued.

Huawei’s next budget phone, the Enjoy 100 Pro, just leaked with a battery above 8,000mAh, a Kirin 8-series chip and four new colors, according to well-known Weibo tipster Digital Chat Station. The Enjoy line is how Huawei sells phones to millions of price-conscious buyers in China, and this leak shows that huge batteries have become a budget feature, while screens may be where costs get cut. Here’s what the leak says, what we think it means, and what to expect before launch.

You once played Basil Fawlty in an amateur student production of Fawlty Towers at Queen’s College in Melbourne. How amateur was your Basil Fawlty moustache? It was terrible. It was real but it was definitely coloured in – I still have holes in my beard. I’d also shaved my head, so if you look at the early promo posters, you can clearly see I’m wearing a wig. Our theatre was closed so we had to perform in a circus tent in the middle of winter, on an oval in the university grounds, which was all very Fawlty Towers. I’ve always loved comedy. I didn’t really do anything serious until drama school. I always thought there might be a good spin-off with Sauron and Celebrimbor as an odd-couple situation. You play Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Tolkien wrote that Sauron “represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible”. What do you consider wholly evil? A complete disregard for the feelings and wellbeing of other people, to put it simply. It’s the intention, I think. I have horrible flashbacks to playing Aussie rules when I was about 17. I thought people were being quite evil to me at the time.